Project Snowstorm
by skyfall007
Summary: When Darren's father's past catches up to him and she pays the price for it, she learns what trust and friendship really means. Along the way she comes to terms with her past and possibly finds love. When the time comes though will she be able to betray them to keep them safe or will she stay and watch as they fall around her?


Hi! My name's Darren-Elizabeth Kasumi Kuromori, Darren or Ren for short. I am a eighteen year old girl , I am from Asian and Canadian descent and have mildly wavy chocolate hair, a skin color that looked, well... Asian and I have deep ocean blue eyes. I go to Gotham Academy and I am a freshman. My life was perfectly normal with my older brother Patrick, my younger twin brothers Sean and Ian, and my yet-to-be-born sister Iris (Notice that we all have Irish first names most of them another way to spell and pronounce 'John'). I lived peacefully in isolation as an insomniac and was an aspiring writer when it all went to fucking hell and back.

My life went to hell the day of my Latin test five years ago (for me anyways) at Whitman Academy. I was thirteen, it was early in the morning and I had yet to get up since I had spent most of the night studying and had fallen asleep in my clothes: Wayfarers, my blue dress shirt, my black and silver blazer, my black/silver/blue striped tie, my black cargo pants, my utility belt with my shéng biāo (rope dart) and my toolset, brown hunting boots, and my fingerless black glove for my left hand which secretly was a computer that I had created in my spare time.

Knock, knock.

"Five more minutes..."

Knock, knock.

"Go the fuck away!"

Knock, knock.

"If you don't leave in five seconds, I will make you the first human pretzel!"

CRASH! My door was broken down and I was dragged out of my bed and a cloth was shoved in my face forcing me to breathe in and inhale the chemical which is slowly knocking me out now. The last thing I saw and heard was a white labcoat and a painful voice in my head saying, 'Stop struggling.'

When I came to I was strapped down with metal restraints on a metal platform. Before I had a chance to look around someone spoke, "Ah, I see that Dr. Kuromori's last creation is awake. Darren, what did your father do for a living?"

"He is the head of the Genetics Department for Wayne Industries if that's what you mean." I growled struggling against my restraints.

"No, I'm talking about before that when he worked for Cadmus," The man said before determining that I didn't know what he was talking about and continuing, "He was in charge of the genetic coding of our genomorphs. He worked on this for almost all of his time with Cadmus, but then he had the idea to try to change the genetic coding of a human. He wanted to create a superhuman from scratch so he took your mother who at the time was pregnant with you and started slowly but carefully rewriting your genetic coding. In the end he created a human with the mindset of a genius and the ability to control water and wind and ice, fly, breathe water, enhanced senses, slightly enhanced strength, and withstand extremely cold weather. With advantages come weaknesses too, like if you have prolonged exposure to extreme heat is like being an Atlantian, but worse and you're more suspectible to electricity. I think that it's time that we activate your powers. You'll soon be joining Project Kr in a Cryopod."

He took out a needle filled with a mysterious green liquid and injected me with it. A burning sensation spread throughout my veins and it grew. Eventually the burning sensation grew to the point that it felt like someone poured molten lava inside of me, when the lava reached my head I heard that voice in my head again saying, 'Psimon says forget,' and then I passed out. I was pulled out of cryo countless times over the years and I was _'__tested__'_ or simply tortured in every way, physically and mentally. When I finally woke up for good I had no memory and was in a room with three costumed teens. One of them said, "So this is what Project Kr and Project Snow are."

Something in me told me to attack them while something else told me to trust them and out of pure instinct I lunged at one of them and punched him. Right before I hit him, my fist was coated in what I think was wind and when the hit landed it launched the kid to the far side of the room. Superboy attacked another one and I took the last one. When they were out cold, and heard a voice in my head say, 'Break down the door.' Then suddenly my thoughts got cloudy. As if I was in a trance, I walked over to the sealed door and held my palm out and a small bullet of air shot out of my palm and ripped the door to pieces I picked up one of the costumed teens and walked to the cloning chamber I strapped the kid to the cloning pod and took the other one Superboy had and strapped that kid in too when we were done both me and Superboy just stood there and waited for them to wake up.

Gradually, one-by-one they all woke up. Two of them focused their attention on Superboy, the loud and annoying one and the tiny scrawny one. The quiet one looked at me and said, "Who are you?"

"I- I don't remember. I know that I wasn't always down here but I don't remember who I was or how I got here. All I remember is my purpose and my powers: to protect Superboy and my powers are flying, water and wind bending, breathing in water, heightened senses, and immunity to cold weather. And besides, what other choice do I have? I don't even know my name. And it could've been years since my last memories. My family could be dead and I wouldn't know it! This is my home now; I would have nothing and nowhere else to go if I left Cadmus!"

The quiet one looked me in the eye then asked, "Do you believe that you deserve this? You are a human being you do not belong in a place like this. You may be wrong about your family being dead. And you and Superboy deserve a chance to have a life and make choices. And everyone has a choice, even you have a choice. You just have to make the right one. "

"ENOUGH! Superboy and Snow don't listen to them you're not a real girl and boy, your property of me- well Cadmus- same thing. Now get back to your solar pod and your Cryopod!" Desmond shouted as a genomorph jumped onto Superboy's shoulder. I heard a voice in my head again say, 'Go to your pod.' My thoughts got cloudy again and I turned around and walked away going to my solar pod. I heard screaming and heard the quiet one speak, "Snow, Superboy remember you are your own persons and choose the path you go down on. Not me or anyone else just you. So make the right choice here. Ask yourself this, what would Superman or the Justice League do?"

I stopped and thought about his words and both of us turned around and ran towards Desmond and the cloning pods. I sucker punched Desmond and froze the computer controlling the cloning pods. I turned to the quiet one and asked him, "If I help you get out of here alive, will I be free from any obligation to the League should I choose so?"

"I assure you that I keep my promises." The quiet one said. I nodded and pulled out my shéng biāo. We all ran for the elevators while narrowly avoiding genomorphs. I used my powers and created a wall of ice. The wall of ice gave us enough time to get into the elevator shaft. I jumped and started flying. I looked down and noticed that Superboy and Aqualad were falling I went down and caught Aqualad and Superboy with slight trouble.

"I can't fly. Superman can fly but why can't I?"

"Maybe they couldn't give you all of Superman's powers?" I commented.

"Who cares? You can jump a building in a single bound."

The elevator was coming down and we jumped out at sub-level 15. We ran down the corridor and I heard a voice in my head tell me to turn left. I think Superboy heard it too since he shouted left. Eventually we hit a dead end.

"Great directions Supey! Are you trying to get us repodded?!"

"No I- I don't understand ..."

"Don't apologize! This is perfect!" Robin said.

He jumped up, yanked off the vent cover, and jumped inside the vents. Aqualad and Superboy went in next and I went in with KF following me.

"KF you better not be staring at my ass!" I growled through gritted teeth. As we crawled through the ducts KF muttered, "At this rate we'll never get out!" Superboy stopped and whispered, "Shh. Listen." We stopped and I saw Robin do something on his computer. He finished and said, "I hacked the motion sensors. But there's still plenty of them between us and out."

We crawled out of the ducts and ran for the stairwell. KF said, "I've finally got room to move!"

KF sped up the stairs knocking down all the genomorphs blocking our way I froze the stairs and Superboy crushed it. We finally reached Sub-level one and suddenly the doors leading outside when steel doors slammed shut blocking our exit outside. KF slammed into the metal door as the rest of us reached him.

"We're cut off from the streets," Aqualad said.

"Thanks my head hadn't noticed," KF sorely said.

"We don't have time for your sarcasm guys, if you haven't already noticed

He and Superboy tried to pry the door open to no avail, I spotted a door to the right and motioned to Robin and he shouted, "This way!"

He ran through the door and everyone poured in I ran in after freezing the door shut behind us only to see that we were completely surrounded by genomorphs and Guardian. The genomorphs' horns glowed and we all got this weird headache and fell to the ground. I fell to my hands and knees squeezing my eyes shut.

'Perhaps for the sake of all genomorphs, our brother and sister Superboy and Snowstorm should make up their own minds.'

Superboy's and my eyes shot open and we thought, 'It was you!'

'Yes brother and sister. I set the fire that lured your new friends down to Cadmus, woke them when they were in danger-'

'And guided us... Why?'

'Because you are our hope, the genomorph heroes. You will blaze a trail for all our brothers. Showing is the way to freedom.' The genomorph on Guardian hopped off and he looked around.

"What's going on?" He said holding his head. Aqualad and the rest of the team sat up.

'What are your choices brother and sister?'

"I-" I started.

"Choose-" Superboy said.

"Freedom." We said in unison. The genomorphs horn-thingies glowed and I suddenly felt better.

"Feels like fog lifting." Guardian muttered.

"Guardian?" Aqualad said.

"Go, I'll deal with Desmond."

"I think not," the crowd parted and it revealed Desmond standing holding a vial of glowing blue liquid, "Project Blockbuster will give me the power to restore order to Cadmus."

He downed the vial in one go and I watched as his muscles grew ripping his skin leaving grey muscle tissue behind. He stood up and roared knocking Guardian out of the picture on one swipe. He and Superboy started fighting when Superboy jumped into the air with his fist raised when Desmond lunged at him and tackled Superboy through the ceiling. We all followed as Robin said, "Okay that's one way to bust through the ceiling."

"Do you think labcoat planned that?" KF asked.

"I doubt he is planning anything anymore." I grabbed Aqualad's arm and flew through the hole.

I looked at the beams and started freezing them. I punched one and it shattered the others caught onto my plan and Robin drew a chalk X Aqualad's shocked him and I was still in the sky when he blew the place. The ceiling crashed down and I shielded the four boys with my body and took the brunt of the damage when everything went dark after that. I came to and saw that I was in Superboy's arms. I tried to fly but my ribs weren't having any of that. The team crowded around me and I shakily stood up.

I saw Superman glance over at Superboy and they exchanged a few words before Superman took off and flew away. I walked over to the four boys as Batman, Aquaman, and the Flash approached us.

"Cadmus will be investigated, all 52 levels. But let's make one thing clear-"

"You should've called!" Flash said.

"End results aside, we are not happy. You hacked Justice League systems, disobeyed direct orders, and endangered lives you will not be doing this again."

"I am sorry, but we will." Aqualad said.

"Aqualad, stand down." Aquaman said.

"Apologies, my king, but no. We did good work here tonight, the work you trained us to do. Together on our own we forged something powerful, important."

"If his is about your treatment at the hall, the three of you-" Flash said before being cut off.

"The five of us. And it's not." KF said.

"Batman we're ready to use what you taught us. Or why teach us at all?" Robin said.

"Why let THEM tell us what to do? It's simple. Get on board, or get out of the way." Superboy said.

"There is no way I am leaving tonight without a yes," I growled out.

I looked around and I took the chance to examine the League more closely. I saw that the whole League was here. There was this one guy, Green Arrow, I think it was, who gave me a flash of a memory.

* * *

There was a nine year old girl and her father watching a news alert showing Green Arrow and Black Canary fighting Deadshot. The little girl pointed at it and declared to her father, "Daddy when I grow up I'll be a superhero just like them and beat up all the bad guys in Star City!"

The father just laughed and said, "I'm sure you will Darren. I'm sure you will. Just make sure to give us a shout out when you're on TV."

* * *

The flashback ended and I realized that I was Darren, the little girl. I must have gone into a trance-like state for a while because pretty much the whole League- except for Batman- and their partners were giving me concerned looks; even Superboy was looking at me funnily.

"Arrow what year was it when you and Canary fought Deadshot together?"

"1997, why? Does it involve Cadmus?"

Something clicked when I heard Cadmus and my memories came flooding back to me with the added pain comparable to a searing hot branding iron in my head. I bit back a cry as I held my head in my hands and fell to my knees. Suddenly the pain stopped and I remembered _everything_. I stood back up with the help of Aqualad.

"What year is it?" I quietly choked out. No one would answer me.

"God damn it, tell me what year it is." I roared.

"Batman, she does deserve to know how long she's been away from the world," Black Canary quietly pointed out.

"The year is 2010," Batman said.

"Damn it! I was right my last memory was in 2001. It's been nine years! Damnit!" I punched a wall in frustration and it cracked. I continued, my voice starting to waver with every sentence a punch in the wall, "Nine whole years of them thinking I was dead! Nine years of loneliness for the twins! Nine years since my baby sister was born! Nine years without torturing my older brother! Nine years since my last words to my parents were 'I hate you!' N-nine years since I've seen my family."

Someone finally spun me around and pulled me into a tight embrace. I slightly shifted my head to see that it was Superboy who had an unreadable expression on his face. He just held me close and let me cry out all over his ruined shirt. Eventually I stopped and Canary pulled me off to the side to deal with my injuries.

Suddenly she said, "Where did you live when you last saw them?"

I paused for a minute and then spilled my guts like she was the mother I never had, "They sent me off to boarding school. I was the mistake to them and now I know why. My father! My own father experimented on me and turned me into something I never wanted to be; well I wanted to be a superhero but not this way! I was the problem child going out and playing vigilante at night. Sure I stopped muggings and potential rapes, but the only thing the community saw me as was a nuisance, more or less. They didn't need the first daughter and the second youngest child around anymore when they were going to have another daughter soon and I would be forgotten because they sent me off to boarding school. To be honest I didn't care about my life and thought running away so I would be out of their hair. Heh, guess I'm out of their hair for good."

She looked at me and said, "If you ever need someone to talk to I'll be there for you."

We were at Mt. Justice. And Batman was talking about how this 'team' would work. And then he introduced Miss Martian. When he was done I walked up to him and started asking questions.

"Do I have to wear a costume? Everyone I knew thinks I'm dead at the very least."

"Yes. It is not up for debate."

"Can I change my alias name to Snowbird?"

"Yes."

"Ah, whose sidekick am I?"

"We're not entirely sure who to put you with, and since there aren't any ice/water/wind elemental superheroes we're going to stick you with Black Canary temporarily since you and her get along well."

"Okay you can go now."

The next week I spent working on my costume. When I was done it included my left glove- now modified so that black lines ran down the blue body with silver trim, a spandex shirt with a turtle neck-like collar, a black jacket with silver trim with a snowy white bird with waves etched on, black tights, a utility belt with its buckle being a white bird, a black domino mask with silver eyes, and black hunting shoes. I carried my shéng biāo attached to my belt loop and I had a hip pouch full of low-grade explosives, cool gadgets thanks to Batman and Robin, and protein bars and sugary foods. I put it away and went down to the Command Center to play some holographic air hockey with KF while I was snacking on my personal batch of homemade snicker doodles.

"So guys, since we're working together we should at least get to know each other better. My name's Darren or Ren, I respond to either one. But I have to ask how you guys stand tights. I don't have anything against the capes but the tights... ugh I'm suppressing memories right now of my encounters with tights." As I said this I scored against Wally, again the sixth time during this game. Robin said, "After a while you get used to it I guess but personally I feel naked without them on."

I sighed and fiddled with my locket. After I went 'missing' my stuff in my dorm room went into the evidence locker at the local police department and my parents didn't want it back. So Batman went and got my stuff back including my great-grandmother's Chinese zodiac rabbit locket.

"If I went back to Whitman do you think anyone will figure out who I am KF?"

"I'm not sure Darren. I mean why do you want to go back there?"

"When I was younger, all the kids would separate me from the others, like I was an alien- which in a sense I am since my genetic coding is completely different than a normal human. But at public schools I didn't feel welcome, so after seventh grade I asked Dad if he could transfer me over to Whitman Academy and skip two grades. He of course thought that I was thinking about college so he let me go there. But my dad was pretty important so everyone who went there knew me and my family name. There were a few there who treated me like, well me not a Kuromori. I had a few friends and then I got kidnapped. But I've always found it excruciatingly hard to make friends that last."

"Well, you could go to Gotham Academy. The work there is challenging and I know they have a lot of nice people there. But you'd have to ask Bats if you could go there."

I ate the last of my snicker doodles and said, "Ok thanks for volunteering to go with me to explain to the 'Glare of steel.'"

At that moment Aqualad exited the Zeta-tube and KF and the rest of the team rushed up to him and asked, "Is he coming?"

"He's on his way." At that KF and the rest of the team headed outside while I lazily flew behind them. We arrived just as Red Tornado landed and asked, "Is there a reason that you have intercepted me outside the bay doors?"

"Tornado, do you have any missions for us?" I asked beating everyone to the punch.

"Assigning missions is Batman's job."

"We know that, but it's been a week already."

"Why don't you familiarize yourself with the cave with your teammates? It builds teamwork I hear." With that Red Tornado went inside. We all stood there awkwardly when Miss Martian slapped her forehead and used her catchphrase then saying, "Why don't Superboy, Darren, and I give you a tour of Mount Justice?"

"Don't look at me," was the response of an oh-so-friendly Superboy.

"Well, I would but I have a hard enough time finding my room let alone finding the back door. So in all honesty Miss Martian is your best bet for a decent _non-private tour_. Because we all know that the great and mighty KF is going to want a private tour with Miss M." I said truthfully when they looked at me, looking at KF for the last part.

Miss Martian started the tour and finished at the back door of the place. While she was talking I noticed the smell of something burning, Superboy noticed it too from the look on his face.

"Me and Supes smell something burning. Miss M, weren't you baking something?" I asked.

"Oh no! My cookies!" Miss Martian flew inside and made a beeline for the kitchen. She opened the oven and pulled out burnt cookies with her telepathy.

"I was trying out Granny Smith's recipe from episode 19 from- never mind." Miss Martian started.

"It was kind of you to make any." Aqualad said putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Thanks for the thought Aqualad." Miss M said thankfully.

"Please call me Kaldur'ahm or better call me Kaldur, that's what my friends call me."

"The name's Wally." KF declared.

"Call me Megan then." The newly dubbed Megan said.

"You all know me Darren or Ren."

I picked up cookies along with KF and started eating them. When everyone looked at me I responded with a, "I had a major metabolism, and I haven't slept in one week. Honestly I don't think I will be able to sleep without medicine and I'm not a big fan of needles and pills, I've been asleep for the better part of nine years I don't want to go to sleep. That's how I made my costume in a week and completed and updated my glove computer. Ask Megan and Supes I've cleaned out the fridge at least three times this week. I'm practically a vacuum!"

"Hey I'm like her with the metabolism problem." Wally said.

Superboy turned to walk out of the room when he suddenly spun around and growled out, "Get out of my head!"

'Why? What's wrong? This is how all Martians communicate on Mars.' I heard Megan's voice in my head. The headache I had then was crippling and as a side effect I fell to my knees and I'm pretty sure I hit my head on the counter and knocked myself out. When I woke up I was on the lying on the couch holding my head.

"Ugh. Where's the freighter train that hit me?" I groaned. Everyone looked at me and then Kaldur said, "Darren do you remember what happened right before you passed out?"

"When I try to think about it my head starts to hurt again, the only time my head ever hurt like this was when some guy invaded my mind saying 'Simon says go to sleep.' and 'Simon says forget.' Not sure who he was but my head's killing me. Wait did something happen? I remember eating cookies then blank."

"Well, yes something did happen Megan started talking telepathically to everyone then you collapsed to your knees and hit your head on the counter and knocked yourself out."

I sat up and held my head in my hands. I sighed and said to Megan, "Next time you do that, give me a heads up. But don't go through my memories or you'll most likely be mentally scarred for life."

"I still remember what Cadmus did to me. The poisons, the parasites, and chemicals injected into my blood stream and the physical torture," I said and continued getting lost in flashbacks and I started trembling looking down at my hands going into shock, "They did experiment after experiment and shocked me and shocked me. They mentally tortured me. Beating after beating."

I think everyone was looking at me in horror. I wouldn't know though I just kept talking overcome by the flashbacks and the fear induced trance I was in. Someone started shaking me but I didn't pay any attention to it eventually someone slapped me and I came to my senses. I realized what I had done and I forced a smile.

"Sorry about that I was saying my thoughts out loud," I lied convincingly. Almost everyone believed me except for Superboy who kept on looking at me with a frown on his face.

I broke the ice – hah 'broke the ice' when I'm an ice elemental - by asking Megan, "Hey can we go on a ride on that ship in the hangar?"

"Hello Megan, Why didn't I think about that?!" She flew to the hangar and everyone else followed. I flew up to a certain someone and smacked Superboy on the head and whispered harshly, "Don't be an ass! Go and say sorry for overreacting. If you don't do it willingly I will make you."

Superboy just gave me a glare and I returned the glare right back at him. He then said, "I know you're lying about what just happened. But drop this and I'll drop this topic."

I sighed and boarded the ship nursing a massive migraine which I've been getting every so often since I've gotten out of my Cryopod. Rob turned to look at me and I lied through my teeth, "Just a little headache from when I hit my head, that's all. I'll probably need to make an icepack at the very least."

I smiled and turned my attention to looking out the window. Thinking back to it when they let me out of the Cryopod there was a door to the left of our pod.

"…"

I held my head and tuned everyone out for a while and started thinking about the events leading up until now until Wally who was sitting right next to me started poking me.

"Wally I swear if you poke me one more time not even your speed will be able to save you," I growled not opening my eyes, "Is there something you all need or are you just going to stare at me?"

"Ah no, I just asked you if you were all right, you've been wincing as if you were in pain since we left the mountain," Megan said gently.

"Just a migraine that's all. I'm fine, no need to act like my mother. I've held my own since my parents sent me to boarding school." I spoke in an irritated tone. The team looked at me in surprise. Suddenly my head snapped towards a power plant and I muttered under my breath, "I've got a bad feeling."

Superboy heard this and was about to ask me what I meant until Tornado spoke through the comm channel, "Red Tornado to Miss Martian. An emergency alert has been triggered at the Happy Harbor power plant. I suggest you go investigate, covertly. I'm sending coordinates."

"Received, adjusting course." Megan said.

"Tornado's keeping us busy again." Robin growled.

"Well, a simple fire led you to Superboy. We should find out what caused the alert." Megan said. I looked back outside and my eyes widened.

"Yeah, I know what caused the alert." I spoke flatly. A huge tornado swept up on the Bioship and sent it tossing and turning. I tried to use my powers to steady the ship, but it went tumbling to the ground. We quickly exited the ship only for Robin to disappear on us.

After that everything went downhill.


End file.
